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The Peculiar Poetry Competition

The £10,000 prize attracted numerous contributions,
Some national and some as distant as Australia.
All poetry submitted by email for a specific purpose,
So that the emails could be filtered upon their arrival...

Folders had been created and incoming filters, too,
With keywords like God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
Other folders received names or places or events.
Other folders received specific topics or famous causes.
Other folders received swear words or hate words...

Then there were extra folders for specific spelling errors,
Punctuation queries or historical interpretations...
Finally, the hundreds left in the Inbox were considered...
One human judge had been selected to read these.
Usually, with his or her decision being final...

As a published poet, he was truly determined to do well.
This was his golden opportunity to find something precious.
Using his own poetry-reading filters as to what pleased him,
Vibrant themes, exquisite rhymes, rhythms and romance...

Dividing the surviving poets into men, women, boys and girls,
He searched for something profound beyond the norm...
Something that didn't involve the mere commonplace,
Something that didn't rewrite poems already done.

Twenty poems remained from the hundreds he'd read.
Each impossibly wonderful, yet there they were...
All by the same poet, with each meriting special regard.
The judge cautiously informed the competition organisers,
Who, at first, were amazed, for they couldn't believe it.

The winning poet lived in the same street as he did...
She had known the poetry judge for several years.
She was well aware of all his poetry preferences...
She'd written each rhyming poem as if for him alone,
Using time-tested sage advice to write-what-you-know.

He had no inkling of these actions behind the scenes,
He just knew her poetry was truly magical, wonderful...
The organisers heard him read these powerful poems out,
Nodding their immediate winsome approval at each one.
Without a single doubt, her poems were awesome, lovely.

But for the life of them, nobody could select a winner.
The poems were so special they enhanced each other.
They had to be joint winners, no other choice possible,
Each worthy, receiving its rightful share of the prize.

Brenda Burton received her well-deserved winnings.
She donated it all to the Oxfam charity to help save lives.
Along with her gift aid entitlement, the blessing increased.
Her photo was in the papers, pictured next to the judge.
Yes, many thought there was a secret romance behind it all,
Yet the only romance was in the poetry itself... honest.

Denis Martindale, copyright, October 2012.

poem by Denis Martindale
Added by Poetry Lover
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